


Say Goodbye to My Demons and All My Break Evens

by labelma



Series: Carry Me Home in Good Health [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: I wasn't going to write a sequel but this just kind of happened, M/M, TW HOMOPHOBIC LANGUAGE, Trevor pov, references to cannon violent events, tw violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25455448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labelma/pseuds/labelma
Summary: Trevor can't stop thinking about what happened, and he wants to thank Mickey... Even if doing so feels awkward as hell.Sequel to "Carry Me Home in Good Health"
Relationships: Ian Gallagher & Mickey Milkovich, Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Series: Carry Me Home in Good Health [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843747
Comments: 9
Kudos: 213





	Say Goodbye to My Demons and All My Break Evens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tmheck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmheck/gifts).



> Carry Me Home in Good Health was supposed to be a oneshot but tmheck commented asking for a sequel, and I couldn't get that idea out of my head, so this happened. If you know me, you know I am NOT a Trevor fan, and this fic is perhaps kinder to him than he deserves, but this is the story that wanted to be told.  
> Title from "Who Do You Love" by Marianas Trench  
> Huge thank you to Shoshana, my beta. Love you girl.

Sometimes you just have a bad day. 

Maybe you miss your alarm and you don’t have time to eat breakfast, or maybe your boss scolds you at work. 

Or maybe you get assaulted by a group of homophobic douchebags, watch a man get stabbed, and find out said man married your ex-boyfriend when the ex arrives at the scene in an ambulance. 

Yeah, that sure was an eventful day. 

At the time that it happened, Trevor was just glad someone had come to his aid. All too often people see larger men ganging up on a smaller guy and they walk on by, pretending it never happened. Trevor isn’t afraid to fight back, but well, he isn’t exactly tall or bulky. He doesn’t want to think about what could have happened had Mickey not thrown himself into the fight. 

And then he got stabbed because of it. 

So it’s safe to say Trevor feels a little bad. The guy got stabbed because he came to Trevor’s aid, and well, he wants to thank him somehow. 

It’s just that there’s the nagging awkwardness of Mickey being married to Ian Gallagher. 

Of course, Trevor has long since moved on from Ian. Two years removed, he can look back and recognize that their relationship was doomed from the beginning, for various reasons, but not least of all because Ian was still in love with someone else. 

When Ian almost ran off to Mexico with his escaped convict ex-boyfriend, Trevor pretty much gathered that Ian was never going to be as committed to anyone as he was to Mickey. 

And Trevor likes to think he’s a nonjudgemental person, but he had already formed an image in his head of Mickey before he’d ever met him, and he does think he’s somewhat justified, after all, the first time he learned of Mickey by name, it was from the cops informing Ian he had escaped from prison. 

In his head, Mickey was not the kind of person to jump to the aid of a complete stranger. He was not the kind of person to talk about his husband with a fond look on his face or caress his face as gently as he did. 

Now Trevor’s image of Mickey seems to have flipped on its head. If he’s honest, despite the fact that he has very much moved on, there’s a small part of him that harbored a bit of ill will to the man who broke up his relationship with Ian. 

But well, he doesn’t think he feels that way anymore. 

Seeing them together, seeing the way Ian’s face switched from scared, to worried, to relieved within the space of seconds, and the way they held their foreheads together, breathing each other in, he can’t help thinking that maybe everything worked out in the end. 

So yeah, he feels like he needs to thank Mickey. 

And that’s why he finds himself frantically fanning his smoking oven while the fire alarm blares because he forgot to take the cookies out of the oven. 

Another one of his kids got kicked out of their foster home and he was already at capacity at the shelter. He’d spent all morning calling around to other shelters to see if they could take the kid in, but no luck yet. 

Most of the kids he worked with came from broken and neglectful homes, dealt with abject poverty, childhood abuse, sexual assault, mental illness, sometimes all of it together. As a social worker, he’s been trained to recognize the signs of these things, and he liked to think he was at least competent at his job. 

Which is why he can’t believe all the signs flew right over his head when it came to Ian. 

He realized it some time after his relationship with Ian crashed and burned, that maybe Ian’s background was far more similar to the kids he worked with than himself. 

Ian was so confident and competent when they first met. He was interesting, had an impressive job, and he was hot as hell. He forgave all of Ian’s missteps about Trevor’s gender identity because it was clear he simply had never learned, and Trevor took great pleasure in introducing Ian to a whole world he seemed to have never considered before. 

Still, he should have seen it. He should have recognized Ian’s desperation to please as a symptom of childhood grooming. He should have made the connection between Ian’s age, and his stories of working the back rooms at a gay club and realized Ian must have been underage at the time. 

He’d been so caught up in memories of his own trauma, that when he met Ian’s mother and saw Ian’s pain he should have been more sympathetic. 

He should have seen it all. 

And he does feel bad. He’ll never say it, but there’s a part of him that feels guilty. Like maybe it was his fault that Ian ended up at the vanguard of a movement he couldn’t control and eventually in prison. 

But the larger part tells him he shouldn’t feel bad. Ian was an adult. An adult who stopped taking his antipsychotics, and made his own bad decisions. That’s the part of him he chooses to listen to. 

And at the end of the day, he was glad to get a clean break from the man who broke his heart, and who he knew would never truly be his. 

The fire alarm finally stops going off, but the cookies are beyond saving. Trevor sighs and decides to just go to the store. 

That’s how he finds himself standing on the Gallagher front porch, a place he never thought he’d see again, holding a pre-wrapped bowl of produce, willing himself to knock on the door. 

It’s a Sunday, so while he really has no idea what the Gallagher work schedules are like, he figures someone will be home. 

Finally, he knocks on the door, holding the fruit bowl to his chest with his right arm. 

For a while, nothing happens. With how many people were in and out of this house on a daily basis, someone has to be home. Right when Trevor is considering knocking again, the door swings open slowly. 

Trevor looks down to find a small red-headed child staring up at him. She’s got a finger digging up her nose, and she’s considering him with her big green eyes. 

Trevor remembers when he dated Ian that his little sister had a child, a reality that seemed to cause much tension for the Gallaghers. 

She’s still looking at him, totally silent and Trevor isn’t quite sure what to do. Should he leave and come back later? Drop the basket with a note? 

He’s saved from making a decision by a sleepy, very adult voice coming from the region of the couch. 

“Franny, how many times have I told you not to open the door for strangers?” 

A concerned looking Mickey Milkovich appears, hand on the girl’s shoulder. His expression calms when he sees Trevor but then his eyebrows knit in confusion. 

“Um, if you want to talk to Ian, he’s at work.” 

If Trevor had to guess which family member would be left home to watch the toddler, he wouldn’t have guessed Mickey, but his assumptions up until now have all been wrong so he guesses he should just stop assuming entirely. 

“No actually, I’m here for you. I, uh, I wanted to thank you. For helping me the other day. And you know, check in, make sure you were okay.” 

He thrusts the fruit bowl towards Mickey, who doesn’t immediately grab it. 

The girl, Franny wanders off, evidently bored by the awkward conversation happening. 

Mickey reaches for the bowl, considering it with raised eyebrows. 

“So you’re the guy who turned my husband onto Kind bars?” 

And the situation is so damn weird, Trevor can’t help himself when he starts laughing, and can’t stop. 

Mickey looks bewildered for a moment but chuckles eventually. He steps back. 

“Do you uh, want to come in for coffee?” 

And Trevor’s day can’t really get any weirder at this point so why the hell not.

He follows Mickey through the living room, which looks quite a bit cleaner than it ever did before. Franny is sitting on the couch, enthralled by some cartoon playing on the television. 

They enter the kitchen to find a young black boy who must be Liam asleep, head on a pile of papers. 

Mickey walks towards him and shakes his shoulder gently. 

“Get up punk, you gotta finish your homework.” 

The boy lifts his head blinking the sleep out of his eyes and groans. Mickey laughs and pours him a glass of juice, which Liam dutifully sips from. His eyes turn to Trevor, first unrecognizing, but then his expression clears. 

Trevor isn’t quite sure if Liam remembers him, so he decides to introduce himself anyways. 

“Hey Liam, I’m Trevor, I used to be a friend of Ian’s.” 

“I remember. You used to date him.” He says matter of factly before turning back to the papers on the table and beginning to write. 

Mickey clears his throat, 

“So, uh, coffee?” 

“Sure, I’ll take it black.” 

Mickey nods and begins preparing two mugs. Trevor hesitates for a second before moving to sit at the table with Liam who doesn’t even look up from his work. 

Mickey sits across from Trevor and slides a mug to him. He takes it but decides to let it cool before taking a sip. 

“So how are you doing?” He asks, motioning towards Mickey’s midriff. The motion is unclear, but Mickey understands. 

“I’m doin’ okay. The knife didn’t hit anything important, I just needed some stitches and antibiotics. It only hurts if I move too suddenly.” 

Trevor makes a noise of sympathy. 

“And you like, had your tetanus shot and everything?” 

“Are you kidding?” Mickey scoffs, “in this neighborhood? You bet your ass my tetanus is up to date.” 

Trevor nods, and the conversation stalls, the silence broken only by the scratching of Liam’s pen on paper. 

“And you? Are you okay?” Asks Mickey genuinely. 

“Me? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I’m used to it honestly.” 

Mickey grunts. 

Trevor has never been one to hold his tongue, and so even though he probably shouldn’t, he asks, “Why did you help me? That day I was being attacked? Why did you jump in when you didn’t know me?” 

The room is quiet, even the sound of the pen has stopped, Liam evidently interested in the conversation happening in front of him. 

Mickey lets out a breath and leans back in his chair, considering. 

“I don’t know, I didn’t really think about it at the time. I guess I just know what it’s like to get beat on for being gay.” 

And this has to be the biggest revelation for Trevor, that Mickey is a good person. The kind of person who watches his four year old niece, who assists his brother in law with homework, who helps out someone on the street without thinking. 

“You know, you really aren’t what I expected you to be,” Says Trevor earnestly. 

Mickey huffs out a laugh. 

“Yeah, I’m not surprised. You probably thought I was some violent thug right?” 

“Honestly? Yeah, I did. No offense.” 

Mickey laughs again, and Trevor thinks that he has a nice smile. 

“None taken. You’re not wrong. That’s what I was raised to be. My father was a neo-nazi, organized crime was the family trade.” 

Mickey is still relaxed, but the information is jarring to Trevor. A gay kid being raised by a neo-nazi sounds like one of the worst possible situations he can imagine. 

“Jesus and I thought my childhood was rough. I mean, it’s never easy to be transgender, but my parents got used to it eventually. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be raised by someone like that.” 

Mickey shrugs, but Trevor can see that some tension has crept into his jaw. 

“It sucked, there’s no point sugar-coating it. My dad was, still is, a piece of shit, I grew up hating myself, it took a lot of work to unlearn,” his face breaks into a small smile, “I got to where I am today thanks to Ian. I mean, if it wasn’t for him I’d be dead or in prison. Growing up I never could have imagined I would be happily married to a man, with a stable, legal income, but here I am.” 

Trevor smiles, and he finds that what he says next is not remotely a lie. 

“I really am happy for you guys. I mean, Ian and I weren’t right for each other, and not just because he was still in love with you the whole time we were together. Our backgrounds are so different, it just wouldn’t have worked.” 

Mickey scratches his eyebrow, clearly fighting with himself over whether to say something. But he does eventually speak. 

“You know, I am sorry about how things went down when you guys were together. Like I know Ian and I had history, but it always sucks getting cheated on, and it was partially my fault. I knew he was dating someone when I asked him to come with me to Mexico.” 

“I forgive you,” says Trevor, and he realizes that he does, “I don’t know exactly what happened with you two, but if not even prison, Mexico, and a neo-nazi father could keep you apart, it’s clearly meant to be. I’m glad you have each other.” 

Mickey smiles, and his eyes are distracted, mind elsewhere. 

“Yeah, me too.”

* * *

When Ian gets home from work, the house is oddly quiet for nine pm. 

“I’m home,” he says loudly enough to announce his arrival, but quiet enough so as not to wake anyone sleeping, he hopes. 

It’s silent for a few moments as Ian drops his pack and peels off his jacket. Then the sound of footsteps on the creaky front stairs draws his attention, and he turns to find his husband walking towards him, a small smile on his face. Mickey’s eyes are soft, and Ian’s breath is momentarily taken away by the thought that he is the only person who gets to see Mickey like this. 

When Mickey reaches him, Ian cups a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him into a brief kiss. 

“How are you feeling? Pain any better?” 

Mickey takes hold of Ian’s hand and leads him into the kitchen where he begins reheating whatever they had for dinner. 

“Yeah, it wasn’t so bad, I mostly spent the day napping.” 

Ian grins, he knows how much his husband loves to nap. 

“Why is it so quiet?” Asks Ian, still confused by the odd stillness of the house which never seems to stop moving. 

“Liam went to bed early, I think he’s spreading himself too thin at school, poor kid. I put Franny to bed at the same time, Debbie said she’d be home late. And I have no clue where Carl is.” 

Mickey places a plate of reheated white people stir fry in front of him, and Ian eagerly tucks in. He loves his job, but it never fails to leave him wiped out when he gets off. 

“Mm, this is good. Did you go shopping today? Where did you get the vegetables for this?” 

Mickey snickers and points his thumb to a basket of fresh produce sitting on the counter. 

“We had a visitor today.” 

Ian knits his eyebrows together, still confused. 

“Trevor came by. Apparently he wanted to thank me, he brought us fresh fruit. What a fucking yuppie.” 

Ian laughs, and to say he’s curious would be an understatement. 

“Was it… okay?” 

It’s not that Ian is truly worried, it’s just that Mickey has a history of being territorial and Trevor can be confrontational, and kind of an asshole. The two don’t mix. 

“Yeah man, it was fine,” Mickey looks at him knowingly, “I invited him in for coffee, we spoke for like five minutes, then he left us with a bunch of produce I don’t know how to use.” 

Ian smiles and takes the hand that Mickey has resting on the table. Ian loves Mickey. Has loved him for years. He loved him when he was a dirty, shit-talking punk, he loved him behind bars, but he especially loves the confident man he has become, without the threat of Terry looming over their shoulders, and self-hatred long since unlearned. 

He’s living a life his sixteen year old self wouldn’t dare to have dreamed of. 

And despite the ever-present pressure of poverty, the felonies on his criminal record, the knowledge that his mental illness will rear its ugly head eventually, Ian is happy. He’s happy because he has Mickey by his side to weather all of it. 

“Hey,” Mickey’s voice pulls him out of his musing, “Stop thinking so hard, you look like you’re going to burst a blood vessel.” 

Ian laughs. He really does love him. And he tells him so. 

“I love you too,” says Mickey softly. His hands come up to Ian’s face and Mickey’s eyes meet his. He pulls him into a soft, lingering kiss. 

Ian breaths in the feeling of Mickey, relaxing against him. Mickey pulls away, resting their foreheads together. 

“Let’s head up to bed. I know you’re tired from work, and babysitting the kids all day really took it out of me.” 

Ian smiles at Mickey, places his dish in the sink, and follows his husband upstairs. 

If this is what his future looks like, coming home from a job he loves to a husband he loves, even more, Ian thinks he has a lot to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said, this fic is way kinder to Trevor than he deserves, don't hold it against me. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
